Theatre Review : Orpheus Descending

Chris
Eldon Lee reviews ‘Orpheus Descending’, which is at Theatr Clwyd until Saturday
27th April, before transferring to the Menier Chocolate Factory in
London from May 9th to July 6th.

This is a classic
production of as classic Tennessee Williams play. All his dramatic trademarks
are there. The unreliable narrator who puts proceedings into a Deep South
setting. The comedy neighbours who disarm and distract you from the tragedy to
come. And the sparring central characters, caught up in an illicit sexual
tension that inevitably threatens the core of the community.

It almost starts as a
cliché. Valentine, a guitar-toting drifter, arrives in town looking for
somewhere to earn some money and lay his head. Lady is about to reopen her murdered
father’s burned-down wine garden and could so with a handy man. But men can be
handy in other ways too.

It’s a marker of
Williams’ supreme stage craft that the true villain of the piece is rarely
seen. Lady’s husband is offstage, dying in bed; a menacing presence who has a
secret to spill and scores to settle.

But the play begins in
good humour.

Catrin Aaron is a
remarkable actor who inhabits the very fibre of her characters. Her cameo as the
busy-body neighbour Beulah, complete with immaculate Southern drawl, is outstanding. She finds huge amounts of less-than-obvious
and surprisingly modern laughs in Williams’ subtle put-downs of small-town folk.
The ammunition must have been right there in his text for 70 years, but Aaron,
and her director Tamara Harvey, have excavated it anew. The result works rather
like a stand-up comedian doing a turn before the big event. Imagine the Porter
being a warm up act for Macbeth.

There is comedy too in
the mitherings of the two dowdy women – played by Eva Temple and Carrie Quinlan
– who care for the terminally ill Jabe; in Jemima Roopers’s vampish Carol Cutrere, and outrageously so in
Carol Royle’s deranged, vision-seeking Vee who, in a bigger town, might have
been locked up. She is tolerated; but little else is in this red-neck settlement
of which Williams paints such a damning picture.

So, when the hobo Valentine
rolls up in his snakeskin jacket and with his passion for playing Leadbelly
licks, he is instantly desired by the woman and distrusted by the men.

Typically, Tennessee
Williams takes the long way round in telling his story. Every character is
carefully detailed, the atmosphere is painstakingly built and the sexual
chemistry gently bubbles. So, it’s a long, establishing, first half. But the
wait is absolutely worth it. The last, crashing act rapidly helter-skelters
towards a deeply dramatic conclusion.

For most of the play
Hattie Morahan plays Lady with elegance and control. She’s an exhibitionist but
she cunningly marshals her exhibits to her own ends. The turning points for her
are the sudden emergence of the truth about her father’s death … and the moment
when she can no longer stop herself ensnaring Valentine. When ‘she loses it’,
Morahan makes sure Lady loses it manically.

Seth Numrich gives the
impression that things ‘just happen’ to his character Valentine. But for Lady,
everything he does is suggestive as she latches onto hints about his earlier
conquests. But it’s all played with so many ‘maybes’ that it really is up to
the audience to decide whether he just happens to be in the wrong place at the
wrong time or is part-architect in the downfall. Tamara Harvey gives him plenty
of space to play his blues guitar and sing for Lady. Oh, so slowly she is
lured.

Already we have heard how
the townsfolk aim to drive one loose woman out of the county. Will Lady suffer
a worse fate? In one of the most blatantly phobic scenes the Sherriff (Ian
Porter) allegorically advises Valentine to be out by dawn. The drifter’s
decision to defy the lawman’s illegal threats paves the way for the lynching to
come. They get away with it because of their insular remoteness.

This is a worryingly
pertinent play about a jaundiced community which could exist anywhere. It is
tense and testy and has benefitted from the passage of time. In our
inter-connected world, we are well aware of the proliferation of such
prejudice.

This excellent Clwyd
production reveals Tennessee Williams to be more farsighted than initially
meets the eye.